Quips, Quotes, Comments, Pictures, Ephemera, and various other minutia...

13 June 2008

His hand....

Can any of us ever conclude that we’re “good” enough to do something great for God? Mother Theresa and St. Faustina argued (directly!) with Jesus that they were too weak, foolish, and sinful to do what He was asking of them. Jesus responded that their weakness was their only qualification, and that when they succeeded the world would know that it was God’s work and not theirs.

About Me

Tevye (Fiddler on the Roof)

If I were rich I'd have the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray and maybe get a seat by the eastern wall. And I'd discuss the holy books with the learned men seven hours every day. And that would be the sweetest thing of all...

It is Jesus

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.

It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
--Pope John Paul II

Carlo Carretto:

How much I must criticize you, my church, and yet how much I love you! You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe more to you than to anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence. You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness. Never in this world have I seen anything more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous or more beautiful. Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face - and yet, every night, I have prayed that I might die in your sure arms! No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you. Then too - where would I go? To build another church? But I could not build one without the same defects, for they are my defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ's church. No, I am old enough, I know better.

And you could not wait one hour?

“70 year-old Buddhist monk Hua Chi has been praying in the same spot at his temple in Tongren, China for over 20 years. His footprints, which are up to 1.2 inches deep in some areas, are the result of performing his prayers up to 3000 times a day."